Commoning or being commoned? Institutions, politics, and the role of the state in collective housing policy in Bangkok, Thailand

This article theorizes the potential roles of the state in the urban commons through an analysis of a slum upgrading program in Thailand that employs collective forms of land tenure. In examining the transformation of the program from a grassroots movement to a “best practice” policy, the article demonstrates how the state has expanded from mere enabler of the commons to active promoter. In the process, the role of many residents has evolved from actively creating the institutions of collective governance— commoning—to adopting institutions prescribed by the state— being commoned. However, by comparing the work to two different groups of communities who work within the context of the policy, the article illustrates how active commoning can still take place in such contexts.

On its path to become ‘North European’: political climate change narrative in Latvia

The European Green Deal is the European Union’s latest expression of its ambition to become a world leader in addressing climate change. This study seeks to examine how Latvia – an EU member state – deals with the change brought about by a changing climate and the EU’s response to it. Informed by a strategic narrative approach, this study demonstrates that Latvia – originally hesitant to address climate change – has rebranded and repositioned itself as an active promoter of carbon neutrality, meanwhile constructing an identity narrative of Latvia as a pragmatic and reliable EU partner by embracing an image of a North European country at the government level. The narrative seeks to appeal to a Nordic life-style and resonates with levels of social welfare that Latvia aspires to achieve. By exploring how EU member states construct identity narratives around the EU’s institutional constraints, this study adds the dimension of narratives and perceptions to processes of Europeanisation.

Harnessing Canada’s Potential for Global Health Leadership: Leveraging Strengths and Confronting Demons

Despite its modest position on the international stage, Canada has been able to leverage significant influence in matters of global health. The country’s global health leadership draws on its strengths as a staunch participant in multilateral activities, a large funder of global health initiatives, a defender of a rule-based international order, and an active promoter of human rights, health equity, and global citizenship. These sources of strength, though, are being undermined by ongoing challenges to and recent deviations from the country’s traditional commitment to global health. Canada recently shifted its funding for global health initiatives away from its multilateral partnerships, recent actions have violated international law, findings from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission reveal how Canada’s Indigenous peoples still face many health disparities at home, and some Canadian businesses continue to operate in foreign markets with questionable human rights practices. While there are many reasons to celebrate Canadian contributions to global health, there is also much that can be improved. If Canada wants to harness its potential as a global health leader, it should focus on consolidating the sources of its strength, which will give it greater influence in matters of global health.

La dramaturgia de Leónidas Barletta. Análisis sobre Odio y La edad del trapo

Extenso es el reconocimiento a Léonidas Barletta por su trayectoria como periodista, a través de sus obras literarias y por su inmenso aporte para la renovación de la escena nacional. Atravesado siempre por una marcada ideología y militancia socio-política, se consagró como ícono del Teatro Independiente, a partir de la fundación dExtensive is the recognition of Léonidas Barletta for his career as a journalist, through his literary works and for his immense contribution to the renewal of the national scene. Always crossed by a marked ideology and socio-political militancy, it was consecrated as an icon of the Independent Theater, from the foundation of the People’s Theater and by multiple staging of invaluable texts such as, for example, those of Roberto Arlt. This study proposes the analysis of Barletta, not only as an active promoter of the scene of the time, but as a playwright through the pieces Hate (1931) and The Age of the Rag (1956). Barletta also made a difference in what the theater was until that moment, establishing norms and even manuals (Actor’s Manual and Director’s Manual), about how the theatrical activity should be. In spite of his innumerable achievements, the scarce dramaturgy of the famous theatrical player is not recognized, has not transcended too much, nor has it been represented on numerous occasions and neither his dramatic and theoretical texts have been reissued todayel Teatro del Pueblo y por múltiples puestas en escena de textos invaluables como –por ejemplo– los de Roberto Arlt. Este estudio propone el análisis de Barletta, no sólo como promotor activo de la escena de la época, sino como dramaturgo por medio de las piezas Odio (1931) y La edad del trapo (1956). Barletta también marcó una diferencia en lo que era el teatro hasta ese momento, estableciendo normas e incluso manuales (Manual del actor y Manual del Director), sobre cómo debía ser la actividad teatral. A pesar de sus innumerables logros, la escasa dramaturgia del famoso teatrista no es reconocida, no ha trascendido demasiado, ni ha sido representada en numerosas ocasiones y tampoco sus textos dramáticos y teóricos han sido reeditados en la actualidad.

The mechanistic basis for chromatin invasion and remodeling by the yeast pioneer transcription factor Rap1

ABSTRACTPioneer transcription factors (pTFs) bind to target sites within compact chromatin initiating chromatin remodeling and controlling the recruitment of downstream factors. The mechanisms by which pTFs overcome the chromatin barrier are not well understood. Here we reveal, using single-molecule fluorescence approaches, how the yeast transcription factor Rap1 invades and remodels chromatin. Using a reconstituted chromatin system replicating yeast promoter architecture we demonstrate that Rap1 can bind nucleosomal DNA within a chromatin fiber, but with shortened dwell times compared to naked DNA. Moreover, we show that Rap1 binding opens chromatin fiber structure by inhibiting nucleosome-nucleosome contacts. Finally, we reveal that Rap1 collaborates with the chromatin remodeler RSC to destabilize promoter nucleosomes, paving the way to form long-lived bound states on now exposed DNA. Together, our results provide a mechanistic view of how Rap1 gains access and opens chromatin, thereby establishing an active promoter architecture and controlling gene expression.

IN REFUTATION OF STEREOTYPES: ABUL KALAM AZAD (1888–1958)

A convincing refutation of stereotypes about Islam as a religion of implacably hostility to the adherents of other faiths serves as an example of life, activity, and evolution of thinking that was demonstrated by an outstanding political leader of the Indian national liberation movement Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958). Initially he was an ardent follower of Aligarh movement which stood for Muslim education and their cooperation with the colonial authorities. From 1911 to 1916 Azad is an active promoter of Muslim nationalism, Caliphate movement. From 1920 until the end of life Azad was a tough critic of the separatist Muslim nationalism, one of the most prominent leaders of the Indian National Congress Party, Minister of education of secular Republic of India. History of Azad’s personal evolution convincingly testifi es to the dynamic nature of Islamic teaching which calls for renunciation of dogmatic views and maintaining the constant desire to discover the deep world outlook meanings

Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim (1729–81)

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing occupies a central place in eighteenth-century European belles-lettres. He was a significant religious and theological thinker whose work puzzled his contemporaries and still provokes debate. He has been variously called a deist, a concealed theist, a Spinozist–pantheist, a panentheist, and an atheist. He was a significant dramatist whose major works include Minna von Barnhelm, known as the first modern German comedy, and Nathan the Wise, which places Lessing in the tradition of eighteenth-century toleration and humanism. He was an active promoter of the contemporary German theatre and an influential drama critic and theorist. He had broad classical and antiquarian interests. And he has some claims to being one of the early developers, if not a founding father, of the discipline of philosophical aesthetics. Philosophically, Lessing belongs to the tradition of G.W. von Leibniz and Christian Wolff and was familiar with the post-Wolffian aesthetics being developed by Alexander Baumgarten and his follower Georg Friedrich Meier. Most importantly, perhaps, Lessing was acquainted with Moses Mendelssohn, to whose work his own philosophical writings bear many similarities and who read and commented on Lessing’s aesthetic writings. But Lessing cannot be identified with any of these philosophical sources and influences. His work retains many rationalist presuppositions, but Lessing also consciously sought a more inductive approach. He adhered to neoclassical standards with respect to beauty and the application of rules of art, but severely qualified those standards by justifying them empirically and appealing to emotional effects rather than to ideal forms or Cartesian clarity. Lessing’s aesthetics must be inferred from his work, particularly from his Laocoon, some of the numbers of the Hamburg Dramaturgy, and to a lesser extent from short works such as ‘How the Ancients Represented Death’ and the letter of 26 May 1769 to Friedrich Nikolai. What emerges is a sometimes inconsistent and fragmentary aesthetic, which one might describe as a critical rationalism.